


Entwined

by TigerKat



Series: Root and Vine [2]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s02e22 God Mode, F/F, Gen, god only knows, or is it healthy, root and vine have an unhealthy relationship, root'n'vine, stupid originalish characters taking over my brain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-12
Updated: 2013-09-12
Packaged: 2017-12-26 09:43:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/964466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigerKat/pseuds/TigerKat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of God Mode, Vine goes looking for Root.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Entwined

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by subluxate the amazing and awesome. I kept a few commas they advised me to take out--sorry. Any errors are mine.
> 
> Also, since they asked: if anybody else wants to use Vine in their own work, feel free. I'd appreciate credit, but really, she's a show character, I just built on her. She should be free to fly and shoot people all she likes.

Their safehouse is empty and has been for days. The plants—Vine's plants, the ones that Root waters religiously even though she doesn't see the need for them—are drooping and browning at the edges, and the equipment—Root's electronics, from the simplest of circuits to the most complex of computers and back again—is dusty. 

Vine's hands curl unconsciously into fists. Root is gone.

Of course the probabilty existed before. Vine hadn't wanted to leave Root so close to zero hour for precisely this reason, but Root waved an airy hand and told her to go, and she promised she'd be back in time. She hadn't managed that, of course—unforeseen complications had arisen, and while Vine had shot many of them there were still a few that couldn't be solved quite so easily. But even so, zero hour was a day and a half ago. Root should have been home by now. 

She is not. There is no message. A cold knot grows heavy in Vine's stomach. 

\--

Root went after her Machine. That is a virtual certainty. Above Vine's objections, above her own better sense, Root went after her Machine.

Vine still does not understand Root's fascination with the thing, not even after their little joint adventure in the fall, but in this as in all things she is willing to indulge her partner. It isn't the Machine itself that concerns her. It is the men who necessarily come with it.

They aren't bad men. They try very hard not to be, at any rate; it's almost sweet, the lengths they go to saving the world. Vine would admire them if she didn't pity them—after all, she and Root know the world can't be saved. But these men, she supposes, have not yet suffered enough to understand that.

She knows their names: Harold Finch and John Reese. She knows the latter's face and appearance. She knows some of their covers and some of their safehouses. She knows that Root must have encountered one or both on her search. 

It is only logical to begin with them.

The difficulty arises here. Finch and Reese do not know Vine's face. In fact, as far as she is aware, neither man knows that Vine exists at all. She would prefer to keep it that way; one never knows when one will need an ace in the hole, and as long as the men think that Root is working alone, they have the advantage.

But she must find Root. That is beyond question. If she cannot find Root, then—

There is no then. She must find Root. 

\--

John Reese is not an easy man to find. It takes her three days, three nerve-wracking days in which she cannot find and does not hear from Root, but she tracks him down eventually, leaning against a bar and eyeing a woman, claiming the name "John Warren." 

For a time, Vine supported herself and Root by picking pockets, and she has been careful not to lose the knack. The easy slide up next to the target, the indrawn breath and the lightest touch of fingers, the quick bright smile when the target glances her way. "Hey, handsome," she says. "Buy me a drink?"

"Not tonight, sorry," and his eyes slide over her, no recognition or alarm. Good. She looks harmless. Forgettable. 

She turns his phone over in her pocket, smiles, deflects a few other offers, and makes her way out to the street.

\--

There are no names to the numbers. Of course not; she would think less of Reese if there were. It isn't farfetched, though, to assume that the number he calls most often is Finch. 

She has only one chance. Finch, Root says, is as good as or better than she is, and should someone get hold of Vine's phone, Root would find out and wipe it seconds into the first call. Nor can Vine risk going too far from the club. She has to assume there is a GPS tracker, and she has to assume that Finch keeps tabs on his employee. 

She knows Root keeps tabs on her whenever they are separated. It makes her feel safe, knowing that. 

Finch, then. There's a quiet, shadowed corner out of the range of the street cameras, that should hide her face if not her form. She selects the number, presses call, raises the phone to her ear.

\--

"Yes, Mr. Reese?"

The voice is prim, almost fussy. Vine nearly smiles. Little and prim and fussy and good with computers to boot; no wonder Root wants him. She's always liked the ones she can rumple.

"I'm afraid not, Mr. Finch."

There is a silence on the other end, and then, "What do you want?"

Good. No demands to know who Vine is, or what she's done with Reese. This can go quickly.

"I want Root," she says. "Tell me where she is."

This time she hears the intake of breath. "And why should I do that?"

"If you don't," Vine says, "I'll kill your associate."

There's a sudden spate of rapid typing, oddly reassuring. She's sat back-to-back with Root before, repotting or fertilizing her plants, while Root works at her own hobbies, the rattle of keys and the earthy scent and the pressure of Root's skin against her own doing more to relax Vine than any meditation. Even now she is relaxing, just a little.

"If you harm him," Finch says, after he's finished whatever it was he was doing, "you will regret it."

Vine shrugs. "Of course I will," she says. "I don't want to hurt him, Mr. Finch. Quite the opposite. Frankly, I have no interest in you or him, and I'd just as soon have nothing to do with either of you." 

"But you will do whatever it takes to get Root," Finch says, and oh, is that distaste in his voice? Vine nearly laughs. What does he think, that she wants to hurt Root, to kill her? The thought is impossible, risible. 

"Yes," she says. "Exactly."

Finch is quiet for a long moment. "I could hang up on you now," he says. "I doubt you could injure Mr. Reese."

Calling her bluff? Vine doesn't _think_ he would risk his employee. "It's your choice to make," she says, tries not to let her fear leak into her voice. They are her chance to find Root, her _only_ chance. What more can she... "Of course, if Mr. Reese proves problematic, I could always find another target. Perhaps Detective Carter?"

Finch makes an irritated noise into the phone. "Tell me, if I give you Root, what will you do with her?"

Vine doubts he wants an explicit description. Still, it's a question she doesn't quite know how to answer. But honesty has served her well thus far, oddly enough; she may as well continue as she's begun. 

"Take her home," she says, simply, and thinks of their safehouse, the plants, the computer equipment, the warm woven blankets, the broad, soft bed. "Keep her safe." 

There is another long pause. 

"Who are you?" Finch asks, at last.

"That," Vine says, "is irrelevant."

\--

He texts her the address right before he wipes the phone.

\--

When she arrives, a white-hot rage grips her chest for an incandescent moment. A psychiatric hospital? They put Root in a mental institution, when she has already been disbelieved and lied to and ignored and left to rot—Vine could kill them all for that, but she grits her teeth, forces herself to relax. Root can't stay here any longer than necessary. She must take Root home before she can kill anyone. 

Besides, Root might like to take them out. She presented Vine with Trent Russell to have all to herself; the least Vine can do is return the favor. 

They bring her to an undistinguished room painted a soft white where Root lies on a comfortable bed, curled away from the door. "Rose," the man says, "Rose, sweetheart, your sister's here to take you home," and Root rolls over.

Something in Vine's chest eases at the look on her face, the pure childlike delight. Whatever has happened, it is not as bad as she feared. 

"Alice," Root says, and sits up, extends both her arms. "You came!"

Vine goes to Root and wraps tight around her, feels the bones and smooth edges, the fragile skin at her hairline. "Of course I came," she says, and presses a kiss to Root's temple. "Oh, darling, of _course_ I came."


End file.
